OpenWrt on Archer C50v4

A few days ago I bought an TP-Link Archer C50. Hoping I would get a v3 or v1 which are supported by OpenWrt OpenWrt – TP-Link Archer C50

What I got was an Archer C50 v4 😐
At first I thought what the f***. But then I started to search the forum an found this post OpenWrt Forum – Support for Archer c50 v4

Since then I have been trying to learn how to compile my OpenWrt images and thankfully I found most of the documentation on the official OpenWrt pages.
After giving all this a try an following the description on the commit of blocktrron I finally believe to have done the wright thing.

What I have done

  1. Download/Clone the commit from blocktrron ant switch to the „hopefully“ correct branch.
    git clone
    cd openwrt
    git checkout c50v4-noboot
  2. Update stuff from OpenWrt to start the creation process (source)
    ./scripts/feeds update -a
    ./scripts/feeds install -a
  3. Call the make menuconfig and make your changes
    make menuconfig
    1. Target System -> MediaTek Ralink MIPS
    2. Subtarget -> MT76x8 Based Boards
    3. Target Profile -> TP-Link ArcherC50 v4
    4. Exit -> Save
  4. Compile/make your files make
  5. After the compiling completed I got a file named „openwrt-ramips-mt76x8-tplink_c50-v4-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin“
  6. Following the description on what to do in the commit message
    1. Copied the made file to a new empty dir
    2. downloaded the newest TP-Link firmware for the Archer C50v4
    3. did the dd and cat stuff as described in the commit message
      dd if=Archer_C50v4_EU_0.9.1_0.2_up_boot-180313-rel54477.bin of=SelfMade-Archer_C50v4-OpenWrt.bin bs=131584 count=1
      cat openwrt-ramips-mt76x8-tplink_c50-v4-squashfs-sysupgrade.bin >> SelfMade-Archer_C50v4-OpenWrt.bin

      and this is the file I got at the end.
      SelfMade-Archer_C50v4-OpenWrt-blocktrron_c50v4-nobootsha256 - 48e6174efda8405462b489f37ad4d21626fcef4885234232e7221f2034add363 (VirusTotal Check of file)

Install the image to the device

This was how I installed the image to the device:

  1. connect the Archer c50 v4 (wired)
    1. Set your network to dhcp
  2. called the default ip (
  3. renamed the firmware file („SelfMade-Archer_C50v4-OpenWrt-blocktrron_c50v4-noboot.bin“) to „firmware.bin“
  4. installed the new firmware through firmware upload in the browser
  5. waited for the Archer c50 v4 to reboot
  6. connected via ssh (

3 Kommentare zu „OpenWrt on Archer C50v4

  1. Hello Niklas Theis,

    this is a really cool tutorial. Thank you for that! Unfortunately, currently I do not have the recources to build the firmware by myself. Could You please provide the binary You have built?

    Regards Martin

  2. Hi Martin,
    I do not have the single resources anymore but I have posted in here a Link to download the firmware file which can be uploaded to your C50v4 (SelfMade-Archer_C50v4-OpenWrt-blocktrron_c50v4-noboot).
    You can check for errors in Upload/Download by comparing the SHA256 checksum

    Regards Niklas

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